The Count of the Old Town

An eighteen-year-old Ingrid Bergman made her debut in this good-natured, practically plotless film set in Stockholm’s Old Town. The self-styled Count (Valdemar Dalqvist) is a free-spirited rogue who knocks around the city’s bohemian districts with a gang of raffish friends determined to flout local liquor regulations. Their ingenious attempts to stay soused while keeping one step ahead of the law provide occasions for assorted comic capers in a Mack Sennett vein. As a maid in a cheap hotel, Bergman caught the attention of contemporary Swedish critics, who called this “healthy-looking, hefty, and direct” young actress “enormously charming.”